13
* * *
“It’s kind of a cringeworthy name, right?”
It was when Doun had dismissed the staff he’d summoned and was scratching the back of his neck.
“Really…”
“……”
“Really crazy.”
Samin exhaled roughly and muttered to himself. He seemed to not have properly heard Doun’s question. He had watched Magnetic’s 20th floor conquest video that the Veritas system automatically uploaded to the point of being sick of it.
Especially the scene where he faced the floor boss was engraved in his mind to the level where he could draw it even if asked to. However, at this moment, all his impressions were overturned.
‘This really has to be seen with your own eyes…’
Samin no longer felt any inferiority complex toward the hunter Magnetic. It was because he had confirmed with his own two eyes that unreachable realm. Far from an inferiority complex, he even felt awe.
“Wow… Hyung. I really…”
“…Yeah.”
“I think I’m going to go crazy.”
At the extreme expression, Doun looked down at Samin crouched on the floor.
“…You already look crazy to begin with.”
“Ah, shit. That’s really too much.”
“Too much my ass. I just said it like it is.”
Even though his skill had ended, Doun took a deep breath to calm down his still rapidly spinning thought processes, then held his breath. While he counted numbers in his head in that state and exhaled again, Samin took out his phone that hadn’t stopped vibrating since a while ago.
[Choi Jiyoon: Hey what are you doing why did you enter the tower with that Magnetic person? What the hell!!!! The board is going crazy right now!]
[Choi Jiyoon: He’s coming back? He’s joining our guild? Huh?]
[Choi Jiyoon: Did you block me? Why aren’t you reading my messagesㅓㅓ!!!!]
[Choi Jiyoon: Guild members keep contacting me and other guild bastards are testing the waters too hey you bastard what do we do!!!]
The messages full of typos and exclamation marks clearly conveyed Choi Jiyoon’s flustered feelings. She had been watching guild master Kyung Samin unilaterally contacting Magnetic, and had heard his determination to bring him to the guild no matter what to the point where her ears could get calluses.
However, she had been half-doubting whether Magnetic would really join the guild.
‘Hey. It does seem like that person is accepting you a bit according to what you said. Honestly, you expose him to people around and pester him, but he doesn’t hate it enough to cut you off coldly when he could… *sigh*… I don’t know. That Timer trash bastard…’
Choi Jiyoon instinctively sensed that Magnetic was weak to affection. Nevertheless, because what he had experienced was so famous, even she couldn’t rashly help Samin by telling him to come to the guild.
Whatever the reason, Yeoun Guild needed Magnetic’s joining. His ability that had been ranked #1 for years. It would be a lie to say they didn’t covet that overwhelming skill.
However, from the person in question’s perspective, the disbanded Chronos Guild executives and their purpose would be the same. Knowing this fact, she had at least verbally stopped Samin.
[Choi Jiyoon: Min-ah should noona leave the guild? Fuck, I’m wondering if there’s a need to keep a guild master bastard who can’t be contacted like this…]
Samin scratched his eyebrow at the message that revealed Choi Jiyoon’s patience had reached its limit.
“Hyung. It’s late at night, shall we slowly head back?”
If he dawdled any more, the sub-guild master really seemed like she would quit. He had to leave without even having time to savor that amazing spectacle. Samin thought about changing the sub-guild master at this opportunity, but decided to endure it because of their shared bond.
“Yeah. I’ve confirmed everything I needed to… Ah, this really doesn’t leave videos, right?”
Doun still seemed anxious as he double-checked with Samin. His fingertips were busy checking whether his mask was on properly and whether his hat was secure on his head so it wouldn’t fall off.
“It doesn’t. That’s why there are lots of guys doing weird stuff on the training floor.”
“…Weird stuff?”
When Doun asked back, Samin who had gotten up from his spot subtly lowered his head. When Doun slightly pulled his body back at the suddenly closer distance, a firm forearm quickly wrapped around his waist.
“What…!”
“It’s a place where there’s no recording and only people you want can enter, so what do you think people do?”
It was a quiz even an idiot could solve. Doun was startled at the sensation of his fine hairs standing on end and twisted his body to escape from Samin.
“Damn… The world is full of crazy bastards!”
“Hm? I was talking about training.”
Samin deflected while watching Doun click his tongue, but it was after he had already realized what that weird stuff was. He lifted his mask slightly to cool his face that had gotten hot for no reason then lowered it, when Samin stuck close to him.
“So hyung. How was it using your skills? Good, right? The misunderstanding is cleared up too?”
“……”
“What are your thoughts on coming to the tower after so long?”
At the voice that sounded particularly clear, as if he was deliberately whispering in his ear, Doun’s lips trembled.
“…Better than I thought.”
“Better than you thought?”
“…I think it might have been okay.”
To be honest, it was thrilling. The sensation of reclaiming the place where he should be. The sensation of using skills to his heart’s content, moving his body, and finally existing completely as himself was a stimulation that couldn’t be obtained with fingernail-sized pills.
“See? I told you hyung likes the tower.”
“What?”
“Your eyes are smiling.”
Samin poked at the corner of Doun’s eyes with his index finger. Only then did Doun realize he was smiling. To think he was smiling inside the tower he had hated even looking at, even while facing a hunter he didn’t want to associate with.
He thought that maybe he didn’t hate the tower that much. And…
‘Even though he’s a hunter, this bastard is strangely okay…’
Kyung Samin was a guy who was strangely incomprehensible and only spouted nonsense. But he always watched his expressions and respected his personality. Although there were times when he ignored his opinions and pushed forward.
“I told you before that if hyung comes to our guild, I’d give you the sub-guild master position. Jiyoon noona doesn’t know about that, you know? Do you think she’ll feel betrayed when she finds out later?”
“…Probably?”
“Ah, shit. Then what should I do? Would hyung like to be guild master instead of me? It’s a bit much to have the #1 ranker as a guild member.”
“No, what are you talking about? When did I say I’d join your guild?”
He had almost answered that it didn’t matter at the suggestion thrown out slyly like a snake crossing a fence. Soothing his heart that had suddenly sunk, Doun called up the system window.
[Alert: Would you like to end your use of the training floor?]
Just as he was about to press the end button, his shoulder was firmly grasped.
“Hyung. Our guild is really good. We can help you clear all the way to the 54th floor.”
“Didn’t you say your goal was solo unlocking the 55th floor?”
Doun looked up at Samin who was trembling his lips and pleading. Even if he cleared floors in the shortest time possible with Samin’s help, it would take a lot of time.
It was a place where skills were used and mana and potions existed like in games, but humans couldn’t resurrect or revive. A place where if you died, you became a corpse just like that. The tower was such a place.
“One or two floors would be fine, but it’s 10 floors.”
Basically, conquering one floor required a group of at least 8 people. Usually called a party, but that was only the minimum required number.
When Doun was active, to clear one floor in the 40s range, at least three groups in alliance had to make full preparations and enter the tower. The casualty rate from conquests couldn’t be ignored either.
“Does it make sense for your guild members to bear the risk because of me?”
“But it’s not like hyung is going to quit being a hunter like this. You want to try new floors and keep doing first unlocks. You want to make money with magic stones and keep being #1. Am I wrong?”
“……”
“I’m not saying I’m going to threaten guild members to make them go. While our guild is reorganizing to re-conquer the 55th floor, the floors our guild members are spinning around on right now to avoid dropping in rankings are around the 52nd floor.”
The information contained in the persuasive, gentle stream of words was tremendous. To think that they maintained their ranking by going in and out of floors in the 50s that even the #1 ranker Magnetic, who was only a ranker in name, had never been to, dealing with magical beasts.
“So would the 45th floor be dangerous?”
“……”
Doun didn’t argue back. If he answered here that they would be in danger, it would sound like he was disparaging the skills that Samin’s guild members, whose faces he didn’t even know, had built up over time as nothing special. It would be no different from a rude answer that touched on hunters’ pride.
“It’s fine if we can’t get the 55th floor first unlock while helping hyung.”
“What?”
“There’s the next floor, and the floor after that. There are plenty of opportunities.”
His desired goal was to grasp the title of solo guild unlock at the highest floor of the domestic tower. The guild that first grasped this title was coincidentally Chronos, which Doun had belonged to. However, due to the increasingly difficult tower levels, it was difficult to conquer new floors with only personnel belonging to one guild.
Veteran hunters conquering the late 40s floors each had their own affiliated guilds, and their bonds were also extraordinary. The situation had solidified where a few guilds with friendly relations would form alliances and coordinate their conquests as the standard method.
As a result, the challenge of Yeoun Guild, where Slope, the #2 ranker, was guild master, was recklessness itself. However, led by their guild master called crazy, they had shown tremendous power and reached right before the 55th floor boss.
With only Yeoun Guild’s guild members.
“Even if other guilds besides ours form alliances, they haven’t even seen the floor boss’s face, you know? I guarantee that even if they clear it, they won’t be able to do a solo guild conquest.”
It was words that conveyed firm belief and pride in his guild members, and even faint affection. Doun momentarily recalled one ridiculous delusion.
‘If I had been in a guild like this…’
He knew it was all pointless imagination. The Yeoun Guild members Doun had met were only the crazy guild master and the somewhat tired-looking sub-guild master.
The past couldn’t be turned back and he was living in the present. Therefore, Doun knew very well that the more he was bound by the past, the more his ankles would be caught. But it was also a place he was curious about enough to have such thoughts.
“Come to our guild. Hyung. I’ll really treat you well.”
It was so excessively sweet that he even suspected whether it was a proposal from the devil. The man who appeared like a bundle of disaster one day was anxiously waiting for his answer. In the end, Doun thought for a moment then chuckled.
“Hey. Why are you making a guild joining invitation sound like a marriage proposal?”
His answer was already half-decided, but Doun was still afraid of other hunters’ gazes. Moreover, unlike Samin, other guild members might not welcome him. Suffering from hasty joining was enough once.
“I’ll seriously think about joining, so let’s go out first. I’m hungry.”
“Hyung… I’ll buy you a complete full course dinner. I’ll show you the financial power of a prospective guild master!”
“I have a lot of money too.”
Doun chuckled and touched the notification window the system had brought up.
[Alert: Would you like to end your use of the training floor?]
[Yes]
The practice was now over. He felt that the moment of choice was not far away. Somehow his heart was beating a little faster.
Author: Hyacinthus B
Hyacinthus
